


Not Until I’m Ready

by Haicrescendo



Series: Carry On For You [10]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon has been taken out back and shot, Druk is doing his best, Gen, Jet has this little problem and it’s called BEING A CRAZY PERSON, Near Death Experiences, enter this universe’s equivalent of the blue spirit, jet has Worse Ideas, like baby we love you but noooooo, like this is straight up season 1 bad ideas zuko, oops it’s definitely harassment, wibbly wobbly pokémon evolution, zuko has Bad Ideas, zuko is peak dumbass for this one yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: [Zuko has a traveling companion.A people one and not a pokémon one, he tells Uncle one night when they’re on video chat.His name is Jet,  he’s a year older, and Zuko found him. Well, kind of. It was kind of like they found each other, because Jet was taking a nap in a bush, and Zuko tripped over him and fell on his head. Jet had yelled and hollered about it, and Zuko had yelled and hollered back until both of them were out of breath, and now they’re apparently traveling together because Jet won't go away.Zuko knows three important things about Jet.]Or,Druk evolves, June is doing her best, and Zuko and Jet’s excellent adventure.
Relationships: Jet & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Carry On For You [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599013
Comments: 151
Kudos: 1925





	Not Until I’m Ready

**Author's Note:**

> The world is a hard, scary place right now, and we’re all just here, doing the best that we can. Despite it all, I think we’ll be okay. <3 I know that I’ve been finding comfort where I can get it, particularly in fanfiction, and I hope that wherever you are, it can help comfort you too.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please leave me a comment and let me know. As always, I can be found on tumblr @sword-and-stars.

* * *

  
Zuko has a traveling companion.

A people one and not a pokémon one, he tells Uncle one night when they’re on video chat.

His name is Jet, he’s a year older, and Zuko _found_ him. Well, kind of. It was kind of like they found each other, because Jet was taking a nap in a bush, and Zuko tripped over him and fell on his head. Jet had yelled and hollered about it, and Zuko had yelled and hollered back until both of them were out of breath, and now they’re apparently traveling together because Jet won't _go away_.

Zuko knows three important things about Jet.

[1] He has two pokémon, named Longshot and Smellerbee. Longshot is a Grovyle and Smellerbee a Sableye, and Jet _loves_ them.

[2] He’s a huge, presumptuous flirt. Zuko knows that it doesn’t mean anything, because he’s seen Jet flirt with everyone from the convenience store cashier to...well, him. Zuko’s never considered flirting for a free soda but Jet is relentless and shameless and, to Zuko’s horror, succeeds more than he fails. 

A free soda is one thing, but Jet gets _nothing_ out of flirting mercilessly with Zuko, except for maybe a funny reaction.

[3] He really, really hates Team Rocket.

Normal, rational people should _absolutely_ hate Team Rocket, but Jet hates them to a degree that makes Zuko’s skin crawl a little bit with the intensity of it. He isn’t sure that he hates _anyone_ the way that Jet hates Team Rocket.

It’s not like Zuko even wanted a people-companion hanging around him but he ended up with one anyway, if only because he can’t seem to get rid of him.

Jet says it’s because he thinks that Zuko’s _interesting_. 

Zuko just thinks that Jet’s bored.

Bored of what, he’s not sure.

“Are you listening to me?”

Zuko jerks.

“What?”

“God, you’re spacy. It’s a good thing you’re cute.”

Zuko glares.

“ _You’re_ spacy. And stop chewing on weeds, you look like a hick.”

“ _You_ look like a hick.”

“ _I do not._ ”

Jet’s _annoying_. He’s annoying but he takes really, really good care of his pokémon, so Zuko figures that he can’t be _that_ bad. Jet talks to Longshot and Smellerbee like they’re people, just like Zuko talks to his pokémon, just like Azula or— Just like other people that Zuko can think of _don’t._

So in the end, he’s annoying but not that awful, and Zuko wonders, on and off when he doesn’t want to actively strangle him, if this is what it’s like to have a friend. A people friend, not a pokémon friend.

People-friend or no people-friend, Zuko flips him off anyway and continues with his shopping list. If he skips too many meals, Peony starts trying to feed him again, and accidentally eating a bug one time because he’s not paying attention is more than enough.

Maybe, Zuko thinks, this time he’s just being paranoid.

Maybe this time, he can be wrong and be happy about it.

Zuko forgets, just for a moment, that he’s _never_ wrong when he wants to be.

* * *

The shopping bag with dinner fixings slips out of Zuko’s slackened fingers and falls to the ground with a hard rustle.

Razor sharp leaves pin a struggling man to a tree, facing the drop of the ravine. Jet stands, impassive and with his arms crossed over his chest, off to the side, and encourages Longshot to snarl into his face, which is streaked with blood.

“Please, I don’t know _anything—_ “

“ _Liar,_ ” Jet snarls. Zuko’s never heard his voice so cold and so cruel. “Tell the truth, Team Rocket scum, or my friend here’s going to take another turn with you. So you’d better quit lying, because I don’t have a problem with it—“

“What the hell are you _doing_?” Zuko reveals himself with a flurry of noise and motion, “What is _wrong with you_?” He’s numb with horror, at how easily Jet encourages his pokémon to turn on people, and puts himself between the pinned man and Longshot, who shows his teeth.

“Get out of here. Zuko,” Jet says, “You don’t understand. Go back to camp.”

“I don’t have to understand, and I don’t want to!” Zuko snaps back. “It doesn’t matter if he _is—_ “

“ _Like hell it doesn’t.”_ Jet’s words come out in a freezing hiss, hatred drips off of every syllable.

“I’m not Team Rocket, I _swear_ , I don’t know anything—“ the pinned man blubbers, on the verge of tears, continues to struggle. “I don’t know anything, okay? I don’t know _anything._ ”

“I can’t let you do this,” Zuko says, low and quiet. He wanted to be wrong so badly. For once, he wanted to be wrong.

“You’re defending this guy?”

Without taking his eyes off Jet, Zuko presses the button on a pokéball at his hip, releasing Druk in a flash of light. The Charmeleon growls, low in his throat, swings his flaming tail slowly back and forth in a threatening arc. Zuko takes the moment to rip the hard, razor sharp leaves out of the man’s clothes and release him.

“Get out of here.” Zuko turns back to Jet. “You want to fight somebody? You can fight me instead.”

The other boy’s trembling with rage.

“What the fuck, Zuko? I thought you—how could you?”

He’s got no right to sound so hurt or betrayed, not when Zuko had thought, had been _so sure_ that his own paranoia had been jumping at shadows. 

“How could _you_?”

It’s one thing to fight somebody. Zuko’s gotten into more fistfights in the last five years than he can count, but this is different. It’s wrong to use your pokémon on people except in life or death self-defense and his skin crawls, and he remembers, the memory like a trickle of water slipping through a mountain crack, Azula’s version of hide and seek. She and Shellgon had both taken pleasure in the hunt and everything that had come afterwards.

Zuko’s brain tries to wrench itself free of his body, and he yanks it back hard.

“If you wanna fight me, I’ll knock you right on your ass. You wanna fight with pokémon? Druk’s more than happy to oblige.”

Jet is livid and furious and for a moment, Zuko is positive that he’s going to take him up on one or both of his given options. Zuko stands statue-still, feet planted and hands raised, still so cold but ready and willing to throw down if he needs to.

He’s _positive_ that Jet’s going to try and hit him, except that he doesn’t. The other boy eventually lowers his hands and lets the rage drain out of him until he only looks sad. Zuko keeps his up.

“You don’t understand,” he says, sounding pleading. Zuko can’t even begin to imagine how he thinks he can justify what he’s doing.

“Tell me,” he orders, finally. He doesn’t want to know, but he wants to understand. 

Beside him, Druk keeps his teeth bared, even after Jet recalls Longshot.

“Team Rocket got my parents _killed_ , Zuko. They’re monsters, every single one of them. You know that, right? You know?”

“But you _didn’t._ You didn’t have proof that that guy was Team Rocket, you didn’t _know_. You still don’t know. And you hurt him anyway.”

“You were going to hit me! How’s that any different?”

“Only if you hit me first.” Zuko glares. “I don’t start fights, but I’ve got no problem finishing them.” Without looking away, he recalls Druk, despite the dragon’s protests.

Jet glares right back at him.

“I wasn’t gonna, like, kill him.”

“But you think that it’s okay to use your pokémon to hurt people.”

“...If I have to.”

“It’s _wrong_.”

“It’s necessary, sometimes,” Jet tells him. “Maybe if someone had been willing to do the hard, necessary things, then they wouldn’t have died. They could have put every last one of them away, forever, and those sickos _killed them for it._ Doesn’t that matter?”

“It’s still wrong,” Zuko repeats, hard and firm. “There are things you shouldn’t do, even if it gets you what you want.”

“I was a little kid, Zuko!”

“ _So was I!_ ” The words fly out of him before he can stop them, and he regrets them immediately. “Look at my _face_ , Jet. You don’t think I’d—you don’t think I’d love to take that out on someone?” He _hurts._ Every part of Zuko hurts. “But there’s things that you shouldn’t do. What kind of person are you, if you ruin yourself doing them?”

Jet goes very, very still.

“I thought...I thought that you were different. You’re not, at all. You’re just the same as everyone else.”

“I—“

“Just another spineless coward, I guess. I’ll take care of it myself.” Jet takes a step forward and eyes Zuko’s ready, steady stance. “Still think I’m gonna hit you?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not gonna hit you,” Jet says softly. He sounds regretful and sorry and sad, and Zuko very, very slowly lowers his hands. “I was wrong.” And then he goes hard.“Wrong to think you had it in you.”

And then he shoves out, hard, sending Zuko backwards several feet. He catches himself, barely, even as his feet scrabble against the dirt and gravel. The edge of the ravine is close, _too close_ , and his heart stutters at how easily he could have gone over.

“Stay away from me,” Jet snarls. “I’ll take care of the problem myself.”

As he turns to go, there’s a quiet little crack, and Zuko feels the ground begin to crumble under his feet, crumble and then shatter, and the last thing he sees before going down, over the edge and toward the rocks below, is the look of terrified horror on Jet’s face.

The next thing he hears is screaming, and he doesn’t know who it comes from.

* * *

Zuko doesn’t hit the rocks. 

He comes to hard and painfully, to the feeling of desperate, grasping claws and dark shadows that block out the sun and sky.

Zuko tips headfirst into a panic attack. He doesn’t like being restrained and he can’t move and he can’t breathe and he can’t _see_. He’s not sure for how long he spirals, but at some point he notices that the world is rumbling.

The rumbling is familiar. Very, very familiar.

“...Druk?” He whispers, voice weak and trembly. Druk can’t be down here with him, he can’t _fly_. Is he hurt? Zuko’s heart roars in his chest and he wants to cry. The rumble gets louder and the shadow pulls back enough to let scraps of sunshine pour in.

Druk isn’t a Charmeleon anymore. The shadows had been huge, leathery wings that spread out protectively as the newly evolved Charizard clutches at his trainer.

Zuko pulls away to look at him, blinking blearily.

He might look different but his eyes are the same and familiar, with their reptilian, slitted pupils and expression of concern.

“Oh my god, Druk. Oh my god.” Breathing is hard again and Zuko finds himself grabbing desperately at Druk’s claws, still closed around his body. “I could have died. I should be _dead_.”

Druk growls and crouches back down over him, flattens his body over Zuko’s until he’s flush against the dirt.

Zuko feels crushed and smothered and if he doesn’t get some space, he’s going to shake apart.

“I need to breathe. Let me go, okay?” Zuko gasps. “You’ve got to let go. I need to breathe. I think I’m gonna be sick—”

Reluctantly, he’s released, and Zuko immediately throws up onto the rocks, body heaving hard. Druk continues to hover behind him, as if waiting for the ground to come down again. 

Zuko’s waiting for it too, feels the world’s sudden tilt in his brain but not his body.

Eventually he stops shaking and leans forward to press his forehead hard into warm, solid ground. It doesn’t shake or move, even a little.

The world steadies.

Druk hasn’t moved from where Zuko’s left him, and instead of growls, he’s making soft little whimpers of distress in Zuko’s direction. He’s _afraid_ , and his claws dig hard into the ground, and his tail shines bright like a torch. 

Zuko gets to his feet and stumbles over to him, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process, and throws his arms around his pokémon, squeezes hard.

“It’s okay, baby,” he mumbles into warm, red-orange scales. “I’m sorry, that was scary. That was _so fucking scary_.” He drags in a hard breath. “We’re okay. We’re fine. You did so good. _Thank you._ ”

Druk evolved—for him. 

He’s been close for a while but Zuko couldn’t have imagined that it would have happened like this. Neither of them were prepared for it or even remotely ready.

Still, Druk drops his head and wraps himself close, and Zuko lets himself feel safe, just for a little while. He cranes his head up and stares at the area from which he fell. The edge is broken, the layer of rock underneath a sharp contrast to the rest of it. 

Zuko wonders if Jet watched him fall or if he ran away instead.

Either way, he’s gone.

* * *

Jet is going to get himself _killed._

Druk flies Zuko back up to the top of the ravine and the boy recalls him when it’s clear that he can’t stop shaking. Evolving is always an adjustment process, but it’s even harder when it’s unexpected. Food and sleep should sort him out before too long. 

Camp’s exactly how Zuko left it except that all of Jet’s things are gone. He’s not sure if that’s a relief or a disappointment.

Regardless, he takes a few minutes on top of his sleeping bag to do some deep breathing into Foxglove’s soft, fluffy side. She grooms his head until parts of his hair are sticking up, and Zuko doesn’t complain about it. Not even a little bit.

He’s just gotten his breathing back to normal when there’s the sound of footsteps rustling through the leaves and Zuko jerks upright with a start. The steps are tentative and soft, like whoever they belong to isn’t familiar to the area.

A stranger.

Zuko feels trapped and cornered in his own tent, and hates that his heart’s decided to live in his throat.

“Listen, uh,” the voice is definitely that of a stranger, quiet and female, “I just want to talk. I’m not here to cause problems. I promise.”

Against possibly his better judgement, Zuko pops his head out of the tent.

A young, grown-up woman with long, dark hair and heavy makeup hovers around the ring of stones that marks off the campfire. She looks awkward and uncomfortable. Good, Zuko thinks, it’s what she gets for scaring the shit out of him.

“What do you want?” 

She sits down with a quiet little huff and Zuko finds himself scrambling out of his tent and joining her on the ground.

“I wanted to, uh, thank you.”

Zuko blinks rapidly.

“What for?”

“That guy your, uh, friend had words with? That’s my boyfriend. He told me that you helped him.”

All Zuko can do is nod.

“He’s...he’s not Team Rocket. But I am.” Zuko’s mouth drops open and the girl puts her hands up. “Listen, I know it sounds bad! But we’ve all done shit we’re not proud of, right? Some of us have a few too many drinks on a Wednesday night and wake up in an empty field, and some of us can’t find a way to keep the lights on when we’re thirteen and join a gang, and then realize in our twenties that maybe that wasn’t a super great plan.”

“...it kind of sounds like you definitely did both of those things.” Zuko says pointedly, eyes narrowed in speculation.

The woman shrugs

“Maybe. It was a _really_ shitty Wednesday.” She sticks her hand out. “I’m June.” 

Never let it be said that Zuko isn’t an absolute champion at making potentially terrible decisions himself, and shakes her hand after a beat of hesitation.

“I’m Zuko. What does this have to do with me?”

“Your friend’s going to get himself killed,” June tells him bluntly. “He’s barking up a bad tree, and I’m not a _great_ person, but I’m trying to be better, and okay-ish people aren’t cool with child murder. He’s sniffing around things he’s got no business being in.”

“And you think I even care to stop him?” Zuko’s still really, _really_ mad about being pushed off a ravine, even if it was an accident. 

“Pretty sure you do, or you’d have already told me to fuck off by now. He’s going to corner the wrong person or cut the wrong brakes and something else is going to get cut instead. Possibly his jugular. I think you’re the type of person who gives a crap, plus you’ve got an awfully chaotic vibe for a pipsqueak.”

Zuko makes a face, twists his hands in his lap, and very seriously considers how many craps he currently gives about Jet. June waits him out, so patient it’s annoying. And unnerving.

Finally, he sighs, put-upon and annoyed in a way that only a teenager can.

“ _Fine,_ ” he grumbles, “I guess I’ll try and stop him.”

Stopping Jet seems like a monumental task, and he doesn’t even want to do it. Team Rocket’s gross and shady and awful and if Jet wants to go on a rampage, who’s Zuko to stop him? It might even be for the best to leave him be. But (and this, in the end, is what brings Zuko to heel), June’s risking a lot by coming to him about it. She doesn’t have to and probably doesn’t even want to, but she did anyway. Jet’s not going to be happy with the interference, but Zuko thinks he’s rather given up his right to complain after nearly killing him by accident.

Zuko is a lot of things, but he’s not a coward. Not anymore. 

“Tell me what you know.”

June tells him what she knows. 

Jet has been busier than Zuko thought. Apparently the entire time they’ve been traveling together, strings of unfortunate accidents have followed their weaker teams—cut brakes, stolen supplies, general sabotage, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Zuko rankles at the knowledge that while he’d thought that they were _friends,_ he’d just been convenient instead—a bit player to Jet’s real goal.

He can’t figure out why, even with this knowledge, his feelings are still sore over it. He _knows_ how much Jet hates them, doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Shouldn’t be surprised and still somehow manages.

June also tells him about the local hideout, and Zuko hates _so much_ that Jet was right about it that he wants to die a little.

“If your friend—“

“Not my friend.”

“—goes there,” she continues as if he’d never once interrupted her, “He’s dead. What’s one dumb kid to them, do you think? Sit on him if you have to, but don’t let him go.”

That’s all June has to say to him, in the end. When she leaves Zuko sits silently for a long while, scraping together a plan.

Unfortunately, for June is this: she’s working under the assumption that Zuko’s brain works like a normal human being’s and not like that of an unreasonably reckless teenage boy. When she watches the news the next day, she’ll bury her face in her hands and groan with the agony of hindsight. What was she thinking, assuming a kid like that has any sense at all?

But that doesn’t happen til later.

* * *

“You dumb, fucking idiot.”

“I don’t wanna hear it from you, sympathizer.”

“You nearly killed me, I’ll say whatever I want. _Dumb. Fucking. Idiot.”_ Zuko crosses his arms over his chest and glares hard at Jet. Jet who, to his credit, gives a slightly guilty flinch at the accusation. Not enough to apologize, but his hackles go down nevertheless.

“You can’t stop me,” the older boy says firmly. Zuko rolls his eyes.

“Figured I couldn’t. Too stupid to even keep yourself alive.” He shifts his bag off of his shoulder and unzips it, revealing a mess of nondescript black clothing. “That’s why I’m going to help you.”

“What the—“

“I don’t like you, and I’m still mad at you,” Zuko steamrolls right over what Jet was going to say. “You’re stupid and kind of a jerk, but I don’t want to read about your death in the paper tomorrow. If it got published at all.” Zuko lifts his chin, imperious and jaw stubbornly set. “I’m aiming for the bare minimum—getting you out of this alive. Then we’re done, understand? That’s it and we go our separate ways. I’m gonna help you and then that’s it.”

Jet looks, at first, like he’s about to bristle at Zuko’s demanding tone, then thinks better of it. 

“I didn’t mean for you to fall,” he mutters, the closest he might come to an apology.

“You still meant to push me,” Zuko replies, very quiet. “Your intentions don’t change what happened. What could have happened. Your choices matter.” Zuko pulls the oversized black hoodie over his head, matching all the way down to his black pants, boots, and gloves. Last to come out of his backpack is a blue and white, grinning Gyarados mask. 

“What’s that?”

Zuko snorts and puts it on, fastening it firmly around his head.

“Your funeral if someone sees you, then.” Jet grumbles a little under his breath and Zuko throws a black beanie his way. 

“What, you got grease paint in there too, Princess?”

“Maybe.”

“Drama queen.”

“I can take my hat back.”

Jet shoves the beanie onto his head.

“Finders keepers.”

“Shut up and let’s get going before your blabbermouth wastes the whole night.”

The fact that there’s a Team Rocket hideout in an abandoned warehouse on the sketchy part of town is the worst cliché that Zuko’s ever heard. It’s dank and it’s gloomy and there are dewy spiderwebs in every corner. The whole area looks like it hasn’t seen a human being in years—

Except for the shiny, suspiciously advanced keypad on the door. 

“How are we getting in?” Jet eyes the dingy window, too high up to climb.

“This is your plan,” Zuko grumbles, “You didn’t account for this?”

Jet is suspiciously silent, and Zuko has a feeling that he knows what his plan was, and how it’s probably changed with the addition of his company.

“Lucky for you, I came prepared.” June had given him the code to get in before she’d left, scribbled on the inside of Zuko’s wrist with her opposite hand just to be sure it couldn’t get traced back to her. Zuko doesn’t resent it, despite the implication that he might get caught. Zuko tugs a little on the wrist of his glove before keying in the passcode.

For a moment he thinks it’s not going to work, but then the red light flips to green and he hears the quiet grind of a latch unlocking.

“Listen,” Zuko grabs Jet by the collar and reels him in until they’re nose to nose, pulls his mask up for emphasis, “We’re here to get info and then get out. We’re not— we’re not here to hurt anyone.”

“ _You’re_ not here to hurt anyone.”

“ _We are not hurting anyone,_ ” Zuko snarls, so quietly it’s almost a hiss, and gives the older boy a shake. “If we fight, we’re probably dead. They didn’t have a problem shooting a couple of high profile cops, what makes you think they’d care about shooting some kids?” He gives him another shake for emphasis, in an attempt to rattle some brains loose.

“God, you could have been great, if not for…” Jet’s for a funny look on his face, startled and weirdly...charmed?

Zuko glares at him.

“If not for _what_?”

Jet leans in and bumps Zuko’s nose with his own, tilts his face as if to kiss him. Zuko turns his head away and frowns. Jet grins.

“If not for that soft, soft heart of yours. You put on a good show of being frigid, but that’s all it is.” He’s brazenly pliant in Zuko’s hands, and he releases his arms, as if suddenly burned.

“Shut up.”

“It’s like you’ve never even heard of romance.”

“I don’t want any romance with you.”

“Ouch. Tough crowd.” Jet backs away, though, adjusts his own gloves before cracking the door. Zuko stays back when he pops his head to take a look. “I can’t see shit.”

“Good,” Zuko says, flips his mask back down, and slips past him through the doorway. The black was a good choice; he blends into the shadows seamlessly and presses his back against the wall. 

The inside is cleaner than expected, to the point of being sterile, though they’ve not spared the budget to get lightbulbs that don’t flicker. Maybe, Zuko thinks half hysterically, the lightbulbs are there for ambiance instead. Can’t be appropriately evil without the right atmosphere? He chokes down an uncomfortable laugh that turns into a snort in his throat.

Jet stares at him, expression unreadable, but says nothing.

It’s the lack of people combined with the fastidious upkeep that makes it all so creepy. Zuko would have expected to see _somebody._

“I guess great evil prefers working in daylight,” Jet mumbles under his breath in an echo of Zuko’s internal monologue.

_There’s no one here_ , and that’s wrong.

None of the doors lock except for the first one on the outside, and they peer into meeting rooms, a few offices, a surprisingly normal-looking break room.

Apparently great evil has to share a microwave, too.

Zuko’s beginning to wonder if this whole thing’s a bust until they reach a room filled with file cabinets and shelves—a records room? Or bookkeeping? Either way, it’s _useful_.

“You take this side, I’ll take that side,” Jet tells him. He’s tense and tightly wound again, with none of his purposeful laziness. If he thinks that Zuko puts on a show to be cold, then that’s where Jet’s the biggest liar of all—shows the world a mellow, lackadaisical persona when the opposite is true.

Zuko doesn’t fight him on it; instead, he firmly squashes down the part of him that wants to be contrary just because and nods silently. He yanks the top drawer and it pops open with only a bit of resistance.

The top drawer is all innocuous, innocent things. Power bills, water, employee of the month. Zuko wants to laugh.

He doesn’t.

“Anything good?” He asks Jet. Despite himself, he’s disappointed in his findings.

“Not yet.”

Zuko opens the middle drawer and starts rummaging. It seems, at first, that it’s just another drawer of bills. Until a name on one folder catches Zuko’s attention:

_Vulca_.

Vulca? Team Rocket has a few pockets of petty crime here and there on Zuko’s home continent but no one in Vulca would _ever_ support them. No one would ever—

Ice, freezing and insidious, begins a slow creep up Zuko’s spine.

He doesn’t want to open that folder.

He really, _really_ doesn’t want to open that folder.

Zuko opens the folder. All it takes to send his heart skyrocketing up into his throat is to read the name _Ozai_ and the rest...He reads through the folder in a dazed, shocked blur, eyes suddenly hot and swimming with furious tears that he can’t let fall. Not here. Not with _Jet_.

Father’s been funneling resources into them for decades, covertly brushing aside reports and demands for action for _years._ Has allowed those little pockets of crime to thrive where he allows them, because in the end they line his pockets.

Zuko thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Anything good in that one?”

Zuko jerks at being addressed, and shakes his head, hunches his shoulders.

“No, it’s—just bills, again.” Jet’s distracted enough by his own searching to believe him, because Zuko is not a good liar. When he looks away, Zuko shoves the whole folder into his bag, stuffing it into a separate pocket. “You?”

“Reports of little, petty crap. Nothing of use.”

“O-oh. Shame.”

Zuko feels numb and cold and frozen. 

The rest of the drawer is similar, designating certain persons of interest or those who’ve made _charitable contributions to the cause_. Zuko’s a balloon, still tethered to his body but floating, and he takes a few photos of the files with his phone.

There’s the sound of a snap.

“Oh, _shit_.”

Zuko doesn’t register that as a problem until he’s being forcibly dragged by his arm out the door and down the hall. Jet’s not even trying to be quiet, and Zuko comes back to his body with a hard crash.

“What the fuck did you do?” He snaps and shakes off the other boy’s hand, running in earnest. The halls are silent but the panic is all too real.

“Panic button in the bottom of the drawer,” Jet huffs out, “Accidentally set it off. Dunno how long we’ve got before we’ll have company so we’ve gotta move.”

“You would.”

“We’d have been out of there faster if I hadn’t had to practically carry you out!”

Zuko’s got nothing to say to that and stays silent, focusing on getting out. The door’s _right there._ The sooner they’re out, the sooner he can ditch Jet and find somewhere to hide out until he can put his brain back together. His body hurts like he’s been hit, but Zuko knows that it’s not a physical wound.

The door is _right there,_ and it swings open to reveal the shocked face of a Team Rocket grunt.

Zuko doesn’t think, just lets himself throw himself forward to land one good punch to daze and then grabs them by the collar, throwing them bodily over his shoulder and slamming them hard into the concrete of the alley. He doesn’t look back to see if they get up to follow, doesn’t even register whether Jet’s still with him because he’s running as fast as he can.

He runs until he can’t, until he drops to the ground and can’t breathe, until all he can do is drop his head and dry heave into the forest floor. His Gyarados mask is wrenched off his face.

There’s a hand rubbing his back, another holding his sweaty hair out of his face, and a quiet voice.

Zuko chokes on his own spit.

“Fucking shit, dude, breathe, take a fucking breath before you pass out.”

That’s a voice he knows.

He tries to drag in air but it comes out like a raggedy sob instead.

“All you have to do is _breathe,_ Zuko. It’s not that hard. It’s fine. You’re _fine_. Get your shit together, man.”

Slowly, the world sorts itself out. Zuko realizes with horror that he’s curled up on the ground and his body won’t stop shaking. Jet’s kneeling down next to him. Zuko grabs for his bag and pulls it to his chest like it’s the only precious thing he has.

He can’t let Jet see this.

If he could nearly kill him by accident for trying to protect someone who _might_ be Team Rocket, what’ll he do if he finds out that Zuko’s dad is funding them?

Zuko is a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t want Jet’s hands on him right now, but it’s definitely an overreaction to bat them away the way he does and scramble to his feet. Zuko’s skin is crawling with tension and he doesn’t want it.

“Listen—“ Jet begins, only to be cut off by Zuko’s frantic, tumbling words.

“You’ve got to go. I’ve got to go.”

“We should stick together!”

“We definitely should not!” Zuko snaps back, “You’ve got to leave right now.”

“Why? You were _amazing_ back there, the way you just, like, went for it!”Jet’s eyes are huge and bright, and Zuko doesn’t fall for it. He knows how it feels to be flattered and he knows how it feels to be pushed. Jet is fully capable of doing both.

“Amazing? I don’t even know if they’re getting up again.”

“Who cares?”

“ _I care!”_ Zuko locks the profanity that wants to erupt hard behind his teeth. “That’s why. That’s why you have to go.”

“And what if I don’t want to? We’re such a good team…when properly motivated.”

Jet leans in close, so close that Zuko half thinks he’s going to try for a kiss again. He’d better not. Zuko narrows his eyes in threat.

“Don’t be like that,” the older boy croons, sliding an arm around Zuko’s shoulders and pulling him up flush against him. “I’m not even mad anymore about earlier. You really showed me; you have it in you after all.”

That’s _it._

Zuko’s had it.

His favorite move is his favorite for a reason—he grabs Jet by the shirt and wrenches him over his hip to throw him to the ground. Before he can get up, Zuko straddles his back, spare rope coiled in his hand, and proceeds to tie his hands and ankles together.

“What the fuck?! You little shit!”

Jet jerks and flops around on the ground like a furious caterpillar. 

“You could have just left when I asked but you had to keep being a douchebag!” Zuko shouts back at him and resists the urge to cover him up with leaves. He has no doubts that he’ll get out of it eventually—but hopefully long enough for Zuko to be long, long gone. “Leave me _alone_.”

Despite the burning in his legs and the sharp, hollow pains in his chest, Zuko turns and runs.

Jet’s howls and yells follow longer than he’d like them to.

* * *

Zuko asks Druk to fly him to a mountain cave. 

He doesn’t trust the surrounding towns and cities right now, is having a hard time trusting much of anything right now. Cell service is spotty but he manages to send off several photos to Uncle and Master Piandao. They always seem to like it when he takes photos of the places he sees, and the familiar motions help him to feel calm.

He manages to eat something and spend a few minutes brushing the dust off of Druk’s scales and pretending desperately that the file he’d stolen isn’t burning a hole in his backpack with how badly he wants to read it. He dreads it, too.

Finally, Zuko runs out of excuses. 

He spends longer than necessary reading through every line of the thick file. It goes back years and years, before Zuko was even born. He reads every word and then, on a whim, he takes photos of each page and sorts them into a hidden folder on his phone, just in case.

He doesn’t know what to do with this.

He can’t tell Uncle. He _can’t,_ it’ll scare him and break his heart at the same time, and Zuko can’t do that to him. He thinks, briefly, of heading back into the city and tracking down June, but thinks better of it.

She’s risked enough as it is. He won’t bring that down on her head, not when she’s trying her best to get out.

“What do I do?” He asks quietly into the silence of his mountain cave. The only answer he gets for his trouble is a loud, toothy yawn from Druk and an extra blanket in the form of a heavy, leathery wing settling over his body. “Very helpful.”

Druk grumbles at him and swishes his tail.

“Not like you’re giving me any suggestions. I’m entertaining all ideas.”

Druk yawns again and goes to sleep. Zuko sighs.

There is...no good option. There’s plenty of bad options, several worse options…

And one very, very stupid option.

Zuko groans and buries his face in his arms.

It’s clear that he can’t do nothing. This is Zuko’s family and his home and his responsibility, and he can’t put that baggage on Uncle Iroh, or even on Piandao. He just _can’t,_ even though he’d really like to.

The longer Zuko thinks, the clearer his path becomes.

Zuko has to go home.

* * *


End file.
